THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Game Design and Architecture A THESIS Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Architecture and Planning Of the Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Master of Architecture By Christopher W. Totten Washington, D.C. 2008-2009 Game Design and Architecture Master of Architecture Thesis Coordinator: Matthew Geiss, MArch According to architectural theorist Grant Hildebrand, the attributes of a space can do far more to create a distinct user experience than they have been. Other architects and designers, such as Valve Software’s Chris Chin, blame the lack of distinct experiences on the design methodologies that have descended from those of the Post-Modernist movement. Post- Modernism’s focus on form has generated a largely top-down, two-dimensional design process that allows architects to design from geometric parti sketches. These provide useful, macro- scaled views of their eventual designs through plan, section, and model but fail to allow architects the ability to create the same experiences for occupants that were common before the institution of Post-Modernism, allowing many buildings to only be read by those who are educated in architecture. Architecture students today have reported becoming bored or even frustrated with this outlook on design, which is now the basis of many architecture schools’ curriculums. This project looks to another field of design to which user experience is crucial, game design. Game design focuses on design from the user’s perspective, seeking to create meaningful and memorable experiences, albeit within a fictional game world where reality can be bent and shaped, unlike the world of real architecture. Game designers begin their designs by considering the actions players will take within their game, and then identify the psychological, emotional, or interactive elements that will ultimately provide a pleasurable experience. ii This project looks at game design to provide a useful supplement to architecture and the current architectural pedagogy. By pushing architecture through the filter of game design, this project proposes the creation of a hybrid design method that can be used to create real pieces of architecture that not only create meaningful experiences for occupants, but also responds to new technologies that can transform perspectives on real-world environments in ways that are hinted at or described through games. iii This thesis by Christopher Totten fulfills the thesis requirement for the master’s degree in Architecture approved by Matthew Geiss, MArch, as Thesis Coordinator, and by Matthew Geiss MArch, George Martin MArch, Carlos Barrios PhD., and Chris Chin (degree) as Readers. ____________________________________ Matthew Geiss, MArch, Thesis Coordinator ____________________________________ George Martin, MArch, Thesis Advocate ____________________________________ Carlos Barrios, PhD. Thesis Committee Member ____________________________________ Chris Chin, (degree), Outside consultant – Level Designer, Valve Software iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………..vi I - INTRODUCTION – ON THE DESIGN OF ARCHITECTURE AND GAMES…….......1 II - PARTI VS. CORE MECHANIC – GENERATORS OF DESIGN……………………….6 III - NARRATIVE AND MEANING – A SECOND GENERATOR OF DESIGN……….12 IV - THE RULES OF GAMES AND SPACES……………………………………………....19 V - ARCHITECTURE: THE GAME………………………………………………………..25 VI – DESIGNING DESIGN………………………………………………………………...31 VII – WELCOME TO CITY 17……………………………………………………………...38 VIII – OBSERVATIONS AND FUTURE WORK………………………………………….44 APPENDIX A - EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS OF GAMES AND ARCHITECTURE……………………………………………………………………………50 APPENDIX B - GAME DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE COURSE AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA – FALL 2008………………………………………………...58 RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………...63 v ACKNOWLEGEMENTS While I have done a lot of work on this project, it would not have been possible without the help of a great many people. I would like to thank my parents; who have encouraged me in everything I have ever done. I also owe a great amount to my thesis committee: Carlos Barrios, George Martin, Matthew Geiss, and Valve Corporation’s Chris Chin; whose advice and tough criticism has been instrumental in this project; as well as Professor Adnan Morshed and Lavinia Pasquina who have enthusiastically encouraged my efforts . Next I would like to thank Gabe Newell and the kind employees of Valve Corporation; specifically Dario Casali, Mike Ambinder, Randy Lundeen, Matt and Danika Wright, Yasser Malaika, Eric Strand, Jason Brashill, and Lars Jensvold; for allowing me to visit their offices for my research. A special thanks is owed to the students who took my “Game Design and Architecture” course during this research; Michael Kenderian, Alex DiMichele, John Nolan, and Stephan Perez. Finally, I would like to thank the playtesters of my design game; my four students from my class as well as Miles Doyle, Kristin Lipinoga, Lauren Sobecki, Monika Chojnacki, and E.J. Crough; I hope you guys had a lot of fun. vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION – ON THE DESIGN OF ARCHITECTURE AND GAMES Games and buildings are two very different things. Buildings are firmly rooted in the real world; they house functions that are relevant to the everyday lives of human civilization, they respond to and interact with the context of buildings that surround them, and they have to be built to meet real world considerations such as environmental conditions and zoning codes. The design of buildings today is focused highly on the articulation of form, whether they are the artistic forms that have thrived since the advent of the Post-Modernist movement, or the highly utilitarian forms of buildings designed to maximize the envelope allowed by local codes and the financial returns of people renting out the spaces within. Games, on the other hand, exist in the much more fluid world of the imagination, and more recently, the computer. In Homo Ludens, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga describes the “Magic Circle”, the worlds that games create while they are played. Within these Magic Circles, the rules of the game are laws which all players must obey.1 Even games that do not take place in imaginary worlds, such as sports or other physical games, create these spaces for themselves. It is for this reason that many consider games to be a release from the real world, or even a 1 Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955. – The Magic Circle is defined as: The space within which the game takes place. It is not always a physical space or the levels in a video game, but instead an implied “other reality” where the rules of the game are the laws upon which the reality operates. Huizinga was inspired to describe the idea of a “magic circle” when observing the chalk circle that makes up the boundaries in a game of Marbles. The Magic Circle idea was then later expanded upon in Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman as the sphere of influence that games carry both in their own implied realities and in the culture that surrounds the game. 1 “waste of time.” Architects Donlyn Lyndon and Charles W. Moore have even gone as far as denouncing the worlds of modern games as, “virtual reality assembled in computer networks— Memory Palaces dislodged from the earth and inhabited by electronic speculation.”2 What games have that buildings today often do not, however, is a focus on the user; the inhabitant of the Magic Circle. Be they visiting for a quick pick-up game of Touch Football or an all-night online play session of Team Fortress 2, the game is designed to keep their attention and maximize their enjoyment. Much of this is accomplished with the conflict of the players against one another or even computer generated monsters, but these artificial conflicts are only a small part of a much larger system3. Game designers ultimately create user experience through the articulation of a game’s rules, the guidelines that constrict player movement within the world of the Magic Circle.4 While this still seems like a topic that is far from the discussion of real-world architecture, many game designers, such as Katie Salen, are suggesting that game design be adopted as a supplement to the design of buildings to create more consistently “dynamic” 2 Lyndon, Donlyn, and Charles W. Moore. Chambers for a Memory Palace. London: The MIT Press, 1996. P. xii. 3 This sentence mentions both artificial conflicts and systems, the latter of which will be repeated often later on in this thesis. The idea of an artificial conflict is important to understand since it comes from Salen and Zimmerman’s definition of games: A system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome (p. 80). “Systems”, in this thesis, will be described in a similar manner to how Salen and Zimmerman look at the systems of games, but will be used to describe the formal, spatial, and experiential systems of buildings. According to Salen and Zimmerman, systems consist of objects that have their own individual attributes that cause internal relationships to develop between the objects, all within an environment. This definition can certainly be used to described any system, but this thesis proposes that the human’s interactions between other objects within the building’s system be considered. 4 Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. London: The MIT Press, 2003. P. 122- 123. 2 architecture.5 In the professional world, architects such as Valve Corporation’s Chris Chin and Yasser Malaika, are leaving firms to explore the gaming industry and the tools it uses to guide users through spatial experiences. Even in academia, students are becoming frustrated with the top-down approach to architecture taught in schools, and are looking to other design fields to bring back inspiration that will allow them to create spaces that even those not educated in architecture can enjoy.6 While game design and architecture are vastly different, they do have one thing in common: they are both fields of design.